u/lobonmc

Honestly I've had thoughts about this album for the most part it's that I feel that it puts too much emphasis on the narrative over sound to the point that the second half of the album becomes a repetitive slog especially with repeated ideas like being sick in bed. It feels like the narrative matters more than how the songs sound and while I can appreciate that I can't really enjoy it. In general I preferred the first half but honeybee is just confusing both narratively and sound wise.

Like it comes just after stupid song which is basically the beginning of the relationship full of passion and obsession and then we get to Honeybee and all the passion is gone? It feels like begged part 1 like the relationship is in the rocks and it's just a matter of time for it to end.

Like she's already wondering if he's going to go, she's already hoping that the relationship will endure, she's comparing him picking her up and taking her home to a gift from god. She has to ask for him to sit with her and keep her company. It doesn't feel like she's in love it feels like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop like she's surviving on kernels of love. Doesn't help that to me she sounds like she's about to cry.

Then we go back to the super lovey relationship the very next song. Like I get that feelings of doubt could probably have been found even at the start of the relationship here it feels like they are almost the only feelings she had. Like those feelings are more present here than in purple.

Compared to the other song I feel it's a bit out of place, expectations, at least that one I feel she could be ironic or in denial? I don't feel it's ironic but if it was the intention then yeah it makes sense. With honeybee I just can't make sense of it, Honeybee feels like begged part 1 despite being so far from begged.

This is a follow-up to the post I made at the time of the Flash release about whether or not the DCEU has made a profit. This time, since that universe is dead, I will focus instead on DC Cinematic universes at first, then I will check DC as a whole from 2013 to 2026. First, only counting movies that are part of the cinematic universes (DCEU + Superman and Supergirl), then including the two Joker movies and The Batman.

For this analysis, just like last time, I will have to make some assumptions when it comes to Supergirl's final gross. We will assume a Worldwide finish of 130M with a 60/40 split, so 78M DOM and 52M OS. This may or may not prove to be optimistic, but it's an educated guess. For the budget, since multiple sources have given us different possible grosses, we are going to use the numbers given by Variety of 170M production budget and 120M marketing budget.

Similarly, I will have to estimate ancillaries, marketing, budgets, and other costs for most of the flops here since deadline hasn't given us concrete numbers for a lot of them. When possible, I will use deadline's profit breakdowns as my source for the profit or money lost. I will also be using the profit breakdown of Kraven to add to the comparisons. As well as this article by Variety, where they say the movies of 2023 cost altogether somewhere in between 1.1B and 1.2B to make and promote. With my analysis those four movies together total cost are 1.18B, which falls within that range. Don't take this data as gospel. In my last breakdown, I overestimated Flash losses by 40M due to a lower than expected marketing budget. I have also revised some of the numbers since my last post, generally to the favor of DC, for example, assuming the marketing budget of Shazam 2 is on the same level as Kraven.

The last assumption I will make is Superman, which hasn't had an in-depth profit breakdown yet, so the marketing budget is a bit nebulous. Variety reported a 225M production budget and a 125M marketing budge so that's what I'm going to use, with the rest of the costs similar to The Batman.

Now, first, let's refresh how much these movies have done and their respective budgets.

https://preview.redd.it/lalhscrc2vah1.png?width=489&format=png&auto=webp&s=5084a9af7dfde05a184c581cabe694c8195472a2

Here we divide their Box Office into domestic Box Office, Overseas minus China Box Office, and the Chinese Box Office. This is because studios don't get the same amount of money from each market. They get 55% of the Box Office domestically, 40% OS, and 25% in China. Therefore, it's important to differentiate the source of the money.

The next table will give us the box office ancillaries and costs of the movies, we have a profit breakdown by Deadline. MOS, BVS, SS, WW, Aquaman, Shazam 1, Joker, The Batman, Joker 2. We have to note as well that despite lacking a concrete breakdown, we do know that the Justice League movie lost around 60M. Some of the data is no longer available, but we will use the data from my previous post.

https://preview.redd.it/utd6n2qn2vah1.png?width=350&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b81f438a13cfbe2e2fcd5e26ee427e832137c5c

https://preview.redd.it/fk4gc5ar2vah1.png?width=413&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8cbee929248ca625a763a70d8873eb4893610e6

These are the best data we have and are the most certain of everything I will give you. All the other data will have assumptions based on the breakdowns of other movies like Solo, Dark Phoenix, Kraven, The Batman, etc. These are my estimates of the losses and profits for all the movies released post Shazam.

https://preview.redd.it/kyy4p8qu3vah1.png?width=618&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9c284644f3cc1d5196e4a58aa148883d4e39ab3

The assumptions for most movies remained the same, except Flash, which got a breakdown, and Shazam 2, where I used Kraven's breakdown as a more direct guideline for its estimates, a method I used as well for Blue Beetle. This is where the ancillaries and marketing for both movies come from.

Now we will see the overall profit or loss first, only counting movies that were part of a cinematic universe, then all DC movies in general.

https://preview.redd.it/h6i9dpgx4vah1.png?width=176&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ca907421bc0570b05028cc765f5832b622576d2

This is slightly better than the 138M I had put before, but that mostly comes from the fact that I revised Shazam 2 and Flash's marketing budget down. If Shazam 2 and Flash had had the numbers I have now, the total profit for the previous post would have been 286M. So in reality, since my last post, DC burned through roughly another 100M. Now, if we include both Joker movies and The Batman, the numbers look much better.

https://preview.redd.it/9gly1y9a6vah1.png?width=170&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba7c66f9976c535d314228374626ec2e58660e76

In reality, Joker 2 and The Batman almost neutralize each other, but Joker brings in another 437M to the table.

Finally, this is how the total profit of DC has evolved:

https://preview.redd.it/6qzrbqwu6vah1.png?width=533&format=png&auto=webp&s=d2875a59684710d308cbec93798cceec2092e54c

https://preview.redd.it/07qo89jz6vah1.png?width=534&format=png&auto=webp&s=7145d8c93af09236935304e7bae5f18d6803677e

I think there's no need to say that this is the worst performance of any franchise. Having lost since 2020 either 654M or 621M, depending on whether we include Joker 2 and The Batman.

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